The Business of the Business Writing Center

Abstract

The question of how best to serve students in a business writing center leads to a consideration of the rhetorical relationship among students, writing center consult ants, teaching faculty, and employers in the students' professions. Most rhetorical models consider only the writing center as occupying the middle ground between students and teaching faculty. A revision of that model, one in which the writing center and teaching faculty share the middle ground, is more appropriate for a business writing center. Moreover, writing assignments best serve business student writers when students must situate themselves within the discourse community of a post-graduation employer. Instead of fostering an adversarial relationship, business writing centers function most effectively for students when the center complements the classroom faculty.